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Crowd welcomes Ryan to Colo.

By Journal Denver Bureau
|
Thursday, Aug. 16, 2012 2:24 PM
Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan campaigns Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012, at Lakewood High School in Lakewood, Colo. It was one of Ryan’s first stops since he was named as Mitt Romney’s running mate last Saturday. He criticized President Barack Obama for failing to lead the way to a better economy.
Joe Hanel/Cortez Journal

LAKEWOOD — A fired-up crowd of 2,000 got Colorado’s first peek at Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan on Tuesday, and the Wisconsin congressman took quickly to his role as bulldog for Mitt Romney.

“We are going to give America the kind of leadership it deserves to get its economy growing and people back to work,” Ryan said.

The crowd that filled the gym at Lakewood High School cheered and hollered at the speech, which blended elements of Romney’s stump speech with Ryan’s energetic attack on Obama.

He blamed the president for high debts and the slowest economic recovery in 70 years.

“All that he has left is to distort, to demagogue, to divide, to try and confuse, to distract you from the real issues of this election,” Ryan said.

But even as he spoke those words, the campaign steered away from the economic message that Romney has campaigned on all year.

Ryan climbed to national prominence because of the budget he wrote for House Republicans. It aims to reduce taxes and the national deficit through deep cuts to social programs.

It also would convert Medicare into a voucher program for seniors to buy insurance on the private market. The vouchers would not necessarily be big enough to cover every insurance policy. The changes would take effect once people now age 55 or younger reach retirement age.

Colorado Democrats called out Ryan as the author of an “extreme” plan to cut social benefits.

“In naming Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney has doubled down on his commitment to a very flawed economic theory,” House Minority Leader Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, said in a news release. “It’s a theory that says you can give the wealthy more budget-busting tax cuts balanced on the backs of the middle-class and seniors, yet somehow deliver a stronger economy.”

Romney’s campaign joined the fight on Medicare, releasing a new television ad criticizing Obama for taking $700 billion out of the Medicare budget to pay for his health insurance law.

“The message here is that we’re on offense on Medicare. This is a debate we invite,” said a Romney aide who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Ryan’s budget also cut Medicare by a similar amount to pay for deficit reduction.

The new vice presidential candidate promised to run a vigorous campaign.

“We are not going to duck the big issues, we’re going to lead,” Ryan said.



joeh@cortezjournal.com

Will Ryan’s budget plan hurt Tipton?

National Democrats are hoping Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan’s selection as the vice presidential candidate will hurt his fellow House Republicans, including Rep. Scott Tipton of Cortez.
Tipton and almost every other House Republican voted for budgets that Ryan wrote. The plans would cut spending on education and social programs like unemployment in order to pay for tax cuts and deficit reduction. Ryan also wants to convert Medicare into a voucher program for people who retire after 2023, at a possible cost of $1,200 a year or more for those people, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Thanks to Ryan’s appearance on the national stage, Democrats think they have a chance to make his budget an “unwelcome, unpopular running mate” for Republicans like Tipton, said Jesse Ferguson of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
“Congressman Tipton must now defend drastically cutting Medicare and raising health care costs for seniors by $6,400 while giving a $265,000 tax break to millionaires,” Ferguson said in a news release.
Republicans dispute the $6,400 figure.
Tipton’s Democratic opponent, Sal Pace, had been reminding voters of Tipton’s budget votes even before Ryan was chosen for the Republicans’ national ticket. In a Tuesday email, he echoed points made by the DCCC but also tried to keep emphasis on his campaign theme of working together in Washington.
“Maybe most importantly, Ryan, like Tipton, is more interested in ideological gridlock than in solving our nation’s problems,” Pace said.
Tipton’s campaign manager, Michael Fortney, said Congress has to do something to reduce the country’s $16 trillion debt.
“Sal Pace will go to Washington and support Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi’s philosophy that we can tax-and-spend our way back to prosperity. In one year alone Sal Pace voted to raise taxes $200 million on Colorado’s families and small businesses,” Fortney said in an email.

joeh@cortezjournal.com

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